Sergeant-Major Cowley was standing beside him holding a bit of metal that was heavy in his hand and like a candlestick. He was aware that a moment before he had seen the fellow, Mackenzie, bending over the brazier, putting the sheet of iron back. Careful officer, Mackenzie. The Huns must not be allowed to see the light from the brazier. The edge of the sheet had gone down on the dead man's tunic, nipping a bit by the shoulder. The face had disappeared in shadow. There were several men's faces in the doorway. Tietjens said: "No: I don't believe that did it. Something bigger. . . . Say a prize-fighter's fist. . . ." Sergeant Cowley said: "No, no prize-fighter's fist would have done that, sir. . . ." And then he added, "Oh, I take your meaning, sir . . . O Nine Morgan's wife, sir. . . ." Tietjens moved, his feet sticking, towards the sergeant-major's table. The other runner had placed a tin basin with water on it. There was a hooded candle there now, alight; the water shone innocently, a half-moon of translucence wavering over the white bottom of the basin. The runner from Pontardulais said: "Wash your hands first, sir!" He said: "Move a little out of it, cahptn." He had a rag in his black hands. Tietjens moved out of the blood that had run in a thin stream under the table. The man was on his knees, his hands rubbing Tietjens' boot welts heavily, with the rags. Tietjens placed his hands in the innocent water and watched light purple-scarlet mist diffuse itself over the pale half-moon. The man below him breathed heavily, sniffing. Tietjens said: "Thomas, O Nine Morgan was your mate?" The man's face, wrinkled, dark and ape-like, looked up. "He was a good pal, pore old ----," he said. "You would not like, surely to goodness, to go to mess with your shoes all bloody." "If I had given him leave," Tietjens said, "he would not be dead now." "No, surely not," One Seven Thomas answered. "But it is all one. Evans of Castell Goch would surely to goodness have killed him." "So you knew, too, about his wife!" Tietjens said. "We thocht it wass that," One Seven Thomas answered, "or you would have given him leave, cahptn. You are a good cahptn." A sudden sense of the publicity that life was came over Tietjens. "You knew that," he said. "I wonder what the hell you fellows don't know and all!" he thought. "If anything went wrong with one it would be all over the command in two days. Thank God, Sylvia can't get here!" The man had risen to his feet. He fetched a towel of the sergeant-major's, very white with a red border. "We know," he said, "that your honour is a very goot cahptn. And Captain McKechnie is a _fery_ goot cahptn. And Captain Prentiss, and Le'tennant Jonce of Merthyr . . ." Tietjens said: "That'll do. Tell the sergeant-major to give you a pass to go with your mate to the hospital. Get someone to wash this floor."